Taliban taking over Afghanistan

[Solkern]

Don't disagree with this, but a few things would need clarifying.. as I'm sure they'll eventually/maybe? do..

From reports so far:

-The Military leadership was issuing these warnings, and for the most part they were ignored or discounted.
-Supposedly the plan that was in place from the previous administration was conditions based (who knows what those were, but doesn't seem disputed so far?), and the threat of retaliation from US forces was much more likely than the altered plan/timeline the new administration implemented.
-The Military was tasked and responsible for drawing down military personnel and closing their bases, and that's what they did.
-The discrepancy comes in from the civilian side of the house with the State Department personnel and contractors (the majority of Americans left), and which falls outside the purview/chain of command (as you know) of the military.

Either way, it's a sad day for the United States as a whole. Withdrawing majority of personnel, sure. How it was done, no.

The real problem is the pompousness of Biden - in his own words, paraphrasing here, "he's the most knowledgeable President ever on foreign affairs" and his angry remarks to reporters when asked questions prior to this whole debacle where he stated, again paraphrasing, "It's all good and it won't be like that".

For those reasons, because he does make the final decision, it falls on him in my opinion.

Hopefully there is some FOIA requests that shed some light on the decision making process with a review.

Going back to July, here was the real turning point/bad decision that cascaded into this whole fiasco in my opinion - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/militar...after-n1272958 -

1. Biden himself set the date of Sept. 11th.. you have to be crazy to do that. I guess he wanted something "symbolic". Well he got it.
2. Bagram should have been the very last thing closed down to ensure this didn't happen.
3. The current administration thought their civilian and State Department personnel would just be all hunky-dory in Kabul after all the military personnel left. That's just ignorant, hopeful, wishful thinking.

There are a lot of people to blame for this, Biden being the face of the country takes the heat for every decision made under his watch. This withdraw was an absolute shit show. That being said, I think any withdraw would have been a shit show anyways.